The films of John Hughes

The films of John Hughes

6 August 2009: American film director John Hughes, whose Brat Pack movies in the 1980s spoke to angsty teens everywhere, has died aged 59. Here are some career highlights

Thu 6 Aug 2009 19.00 EDT
First published on Thu 6 Aug 2009 19.00 EDT

John Hughes, who has died aged 59, only directed eight feature films, but they, in the words of film-maker Kevin Smith, 'touched a generation'. One undoubted highlight in Hughes's directorial oeuvre is Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), with Matthew Broderick as the ingenious truant. Here he serenades Chicago in the movie's joyous parade scene

The script called for 'a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal'. John Hughes found them in Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson – and together they made 1985's The Breakfast Club an American cult classic. In it, five misfits spend a Saturday together in detention at their high school's library, plotting against their headmaster

Less successful, perhaps, was Hughes's 1985 comedy Weird Science, with Kelly LeBrock and Ilan Mitchell-Smith. In the movie, two geeky boys bring to life their ideal woman and throw a killer party: 'Just a couple of hundred kids running around in their underwear, acting like complete animals'

Howard Deutch directed 1986's Pretty in Pink, starring Jon Cryer, Andrew McCarthy and Molly Ringwald, but it bears the unmistakable stamp of John Hughes's writing. The theme song by the Psychedelic Furs may still be echoing in Duckie's ears

Hughes's next film as a director took him comprehensively out of high school into the adult world. Here's Steve Martin as the poor sod struggling home for Thanksgiving in Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

Hughes's next two movies as director signalled a move away from edgy teen comedy into wholesome family entertainment. Here's Macaulay Culkin, Gaby Hoffman and John Candy in Uncle Buck (1989), about a slob who discovers a latent gift for babysitting

Macaulay Culkin so comprehensively upstaged John Candy in Uncle Buck that when John Hughes finished his script for Home Alone, he couldn't help but suggest the boy to director Chris Columbus for the lead. It became the role that Culkin has never lived down – he plays Kevin, left behind as his family heads to Europe for Christmas, leaving him to cry out, 'Guys, I'm eating junk and watching rubbish! You better come out and stop me!' The movie was one of the highest-grossing American films at the time, and was nominated for two Oscars, for John Williams's score and the song Somewhere in My Memory

Hughes's final film as a director was 1991's queasily sentimental Curly Sue, with Alisan Porter and James Belushi. Belushi played Bill, a drifter, who teams up with Porter's moppet Curly Sue to run scams for food

In the last decade, Hughes had been cranking out scripts, mostly under his nom de plume of Edmond Dantes. This includes the story for Maid in Manhattan (2002), which starred Jennifer Lopez as a, erm, maid in Manhattan who is mistaken for a wealthy socialite by a senatorial candidate played by Ralph Fiennes

John Hughes, as Edmond Dantes, was also credited with the story for the Steven Brill-directed Drillbit Taylor (2008). Starring Troy Gentile, David Dorfman, Nate Hartley and Owen Wilson, it's about three kids who hire a low-budget bodyguard to protect them from the playground bully